Apparently I’ve become the poster child of anonymous tweeters (at least in our own little circle). Over the last few days I’ve heard a few concerns from the other anonymous tweeters about maintaining their security and keeping their (lack of) identity at the event.

I thought this went without saying….but just in case…..

Any kind of misconduct, harassing behavior or motions to un-mask (literally or figuratively) someone at #Masquertweet simply willnotbe tolerated. I’m all about a good joke and having a fun time (and if you’re not then why in the world would you be following my feed), but we all know the stakes in this little game we call life and should all know where the lines are drawn.

If anyone is unclear on this – lemme know. I’m happy to discuss it – you know where to find me.

In a recent WSJ article from our own Julia Angwin she notes that digital small talk really doesn’t replace a 1-on-1 interaction for finding out what’s going on with old friends (BTW – in this case ‘our own’ refers to the twitter community).

Julia’s (terriffic piece) is spot on regarding known friends – friends who we may hesitate to open a vein to because they were that much a part of the building of our own self-image through high school, college and our early careers that we have to keep that persona up with them. That is unless of course we’ve made a 180 in our lives and don’t give a darn anymore.

The segment that goes unaddressed in Julia’s piece are those who would not have met without Twitter and other social networks (Nota Bene: I don’t include FB and LI in this segment. For my proper personae I only use those for people I actually know or have worked with. Twitter on the other hand is an orgy. I do know a number of others who will connect with anyone on either – that’s simply not my style.)

Referencing my last post and making a bit of an exception to it (I promise I’m not bipolar but rather just see many shades of gray) – there are those I’ve met initially on twitter, followed by a long ‘acquaintance curve’ that once I actually do meet them in person or have a phone call with them, may actually be more aware of where they are now in their lives than a ‘long lost’ friend may be even with the assistance of status updates given my lack of prejudice from having known them for years.

For anyone tracking it, I’ve had the unadulterated pleasure of meeting a handful of you. With each coffee/drink meeting we were able to talk immediately, comfortably, completely passing over the awkward small talk of old acquaintances or the false notion of complete familiarity FB updates may bring. Each conversation would likely have gone on for many more hours (and some in fact did go on for hours).

The topic of twitter as the great icebreaker actually came up in May (sorry I can’t find the entire thread).

Of course the proof is in the pudding – it’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out next week at Masquertweet and we all get to play with a hundred-ish of our favorite people we’ve never met.

(PS — Julia, you are, of course, invited Masquertweet. I’m sure there’s more than one of us that would love to talk SM with you).

Anyway, for those of you who know why I keep my anonymity (and that I’m pretty strict about it) you can imagine this is/was a bit unnerving. Of the thousand or so of you out there, up until a few days ago, there were exactly zero that had ever (knowingly) seen or met me.

The mini-meet went great (IMHO). We talked about twitter (and its weirdness), our significant others, how we ended up in our professions, non-work related projects, etc.

An interesting side note — this person, notwithstanding evidence (i.e. the meeting itself) that I might actually share it with them, respected (wc?) my anonymity enough that they didn’t ask me who I really was and as far as I could tell the thought didn’t even cross their minds (that might not be the case though as I’m not psychic). Then again, they just might not care (entirely possible as well).

Overall this was the type of person I would enjoy getting to know better – trustworthy (I believe), smart, funny, kind, etc. – and likely would if we were in the same office or met under different circumstances.

And there’s the wrench – of the hundreds of you I’ve had conversations with, odds are there’s a significant number that I would enjoy real-life business or personal relationships with (in the platonic sense – seriously people – happily married w/ Coglings, remember?).

Of course, without my anonymity there’s little chance I would’ve ever met a fraction of you, or if I had, there’s little chance the relationship would be the same.

This mask I voluntarily put on every day, gives me the freedom to spew hellfire about my clients and co-workers, make inappropriate comments, and do what I do (not sure there’s a suitable word for it). At the same time it keeps me in the shadows (at least while at this place of employment) when it comes to really interacting and taking anything to the next level. Quite literally this persona (with the exception of #Masquertweet) is 99% talk…140 character talk…but talk nonetheless.